Your company invests significant time, money, and effort to achieve maximum ROI from its sales tech stack. And, rightfully so. Failing to continuously optimize can put your organization at a competitive disadvantage and erode bottom line performance.

Switching CRMs is an obvious, yet frequently overlooked, way to optimize your tech stack. The mere thought of switching CRMs can be a non-starter: retraining users, rebuilding integrations, and essentially starting from scratch is enough to give pause to many.

That being said, companies do switch CRMs—and, for a number of reasons. Drawing insights from Insightly case studies, here are five reasons why companies make the decision to switch CRMs.

1. Abysmally low user adoption rates

What percent of your CRM users log in and use the system at least once per month?

If your answer is anything short of 90%, you have a problem. Generally speaking, low CRM utilization is typically related to one of two underlying issues. First, it’s possible that some users do not actually need access to the system. Users change jobs frequently. Some leave the company. Roles and responsibilities also change. To stay ahead of such changes, CRM administrators should proactively monitor system usage while paying close attention to personnel changes.

Second, and perhaps most common issue is that you may be dealing with low adoption of your CRM. What causes low user adoption? The simple truth is that some CRM vendors are better than others at onboarding new customers. If your current vendor failed to provide proper training, documentation, and support, you may experience fallout in the form of low adoption. The same is true if your CRM vendor never follows up (outside of renewal time) to ensure proper use and training. An investment in CRM technology is not a set-it-and-forget-it proposition. Rather, it requires ongoing training, guidance, and service to prevent abandonment by users. In short, it’s a long-term relationship between your company and the vendor.

Real-world example: DynEd International, Inc. has empowered more than 25 million students through its award-winning English language learning software. With so many student relationships to keep track of, DynEd realized that its legacy CRM could no longer keep pace with its needs.

“Customer information would regularly be incomplete, which impacted the sales process,” says Edda Cortez, Lead Americas Sales Administrator at DynEd. “This caused delays and confusion during the onboarding process, which detracted from customer satisfaction.”

As a result, very few team members actually used the CRM, rendering it almost useless and forcing DynEd to switch to another CRM.

Learn how DynEd improved its CRM adoption rate with Insightly.

2. Budget-busting renewal contracts

“Your renewal for the next twelve months is projected to increase by 20%.”

No one enjoys receiving an email with this news from their CRM provider. Sadly, for some vendors, renewal time is an opportunity to increase their monthly recurring revenue (MRR) without delivering any new features or functionality.

As a customer, however, what options do you realistically have? Is it worth the cost and hassle to switch providers to save 20%? On the other hand, a 20% annual increase can represent a substantial amount of money over a five or ten year period.

Real-world example: TravelSolutions by Campbell, a leading provider of travel management services and technology, was facing an undesirable renewal situation with their CRM provider. After several rounds of negotiation, the vendor was still unwilling to budge.

“We tried our best to work with them and adjust our plan level, seat licenses, and add-ons,” says Robert Lawrence, VP of Sales at TravelSolutions by Campbell. “Unfortunately, we just couldn’t get the budget down to a reasonable amount.”

Frustrated by the entire process, Lawrence began exploring other CRM solutions, a decision that ultimately led to more features, better service, and a 75% cost savings.

Continue reading TravelSolutions by Campbell’s story.

3. Data silos

Silos belong in fields and pastures—not in your business.

Unfortunately, in today’s SaaS-driven ecosystem, data silos develop faster than ever before. Sales uses a CRM to follow up with leads. Marketing uses a separate platform to send newsletters and special offers. Implementation leverages a third system to keep track of projects and customer onboarding. Before you know it, your organization uses a dozen or more tools that don’t speak to each other and fail to provide a comprehensive view of the customer journey.

Real-world example: Thousands of rental agencies across the globe use PayProp to process millions of automated rental payments. By adopting a modern customer relationship platform, PayProp gained the necessary tools to knock down data silos and enable greater alignment.

“Insightly has grown with us, and we’re still realizing its full potential,” says Jason Davis, Regional Sales Manager at PayProp. “Our implementation team is in the process of switching to Insightly for customer onboarding.”

Less system overlap paired with a single source of truth puts PayProp in a better position to understand customer needs, iterate faster, and grow the business.

Learn how PayProp uses its CRM to foster alignment.

4. Feature misalignment

“Here’s a brochure that contains our entire feature set. Which features are most important to your business?”

Answering this question is next to impossible for today’s midsize company. What may be important to your business now could be completely irrelevant in six months. Business models evolve fluidly. New market entrants constantly challenge the status quo and accelerate the pace of change. In short, midsize companies don’t need feature sets that align with their current needs. Rather, they need solutions that are flexible enough to continuously adapt to meet their needs when things inevitably change.

Real-world example: Since its founding in 2014, Bright Planet Solar has grown to become a leading player in the alternative energy industry. Seeking a better way to manage projects and client relationships, the team began evaluating CRM providers.

“We hit a breaking point with our former project management system,” says Nell Jungels, Director of IT at Bright Planet Solar.

Bright Planet Solar tried several leading software solutions, but none offered out-of-the-box customizations for effectively managing the unique requirements of solar projects.

See how Bright Planet Solar solved its project management challenges by leveraging Insightly.

5. Outdated technology

The cloud has transformed business as we know it. Software that required a robust IT staff and team of database administrators just a decade or two ago is now instantly accessible for a fraction of the cost.

Despite the cloud’s prevalence, legacy systems still plague a sizable portion of midsize companies. CRM is no exception.

Real-world example: Discount Car and Truck Rentals Ltd, one of Canada’s leading vehicle rental companies, still relied on an on-premises CRM that stifled collaboration and communication.

“Our former CRM created a lot of challenges,” says Brian Tessier, Commercial Call Center Manager at Discount Car and Truck Rentals. “The system was installed on our own server, which created data accessibility issues.”

Moving to a cloud-based system eliminated data bottlenecks for Discount Car and Truck Rentals, resulting in less administrative overhead, improved transparency, and a healthier pipeline.

Learn how Discount Car and Truck Rentals elevated commercial sales by 30% by switching to a cloud-based Insightly CRM.

Time to switch CRMs?

As evidenced by these real-world examples, switching CRMs can be an effective way to boost efficiency, reduce administrative and infrastructure costs, and maximize the impact of your sales stack.

Of course, switching CRMs is not a decision to take lightly. Invest an adequate amount of time to gather helpful resources, talk to your users, understand your unique situation, and reevaluate the CRM market. Armed with this information, you’ll be in an excellent position to consider a switch.

Interested in learning more about Insightly CRM? Request a demo and get a free needs assessment and personalized product demo to see if Insightly CRM is the right match for you.

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